


In Deep Water

by simplycursive



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Inktober 2019, M/M, jonmartin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-23 00:49:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20883428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplycursive/pseuds/simplycursive
Summary: AU in which Martin is a bog creature and Jon falls in love at first sight. (An Inktober one-shot)





	In Deep Water

**Author's Note:**

> No editing, we die like men!
> 
> No but seriously, I can't be bothered to edit every single Inktober one-shot, so enjoy this mess.
> 
> https://inktober.com/rules

Inktober (for writing!) Day 3 ~ Bait

(Martin is a Neck/Nek AU)

_ If you go down to the marshland where the river splits into two for a mile before coming back together, forming the shape of an enormous eye, and you walk across the eye to the center, you will find a mossy little cabin sitting where the pupil would be, looking like it could fall apart at any moment. It won’t; the construction is surprisingly steady, infused with magic as it is. When you knock on the door, there will be no answer. Not the first time, not the second time. On the third round of knocking, the little house will creak as though a harsh wind has blown through it, though you feel no wind in the swamp at all. The mouldering door, looking for all the world like it hasn’t opened in years, will open. Standing behind it will be a creature that you will be pretty certain is a man. Or was once a man. He will grunt and ask you what you want. The first thing you must do if you don’t want the door slammed shut in your face is hold out the gift you have brought him. It needn’t be anything luxurious. A small tin of tea will do. He will take the gift and ask once again what it is you want, albeit in a gentler tone of voice. You must tell him these words, no more and no less: _

_ “Tell me the story of the Nek, your beloved.” _

_ The man, thin and frail yet somehow dwarfing you in stature, will smile or laugh or scoff. His response will depend on how recently and how often he has been asked to tell his story. But provided that you have done all that has been instructed, he will retreat from the doorway and lead you into the impossible depth and impossible dimness of the house. No matter the time of day, the inside of the house will be in a state of perpetual twilight, but do not worry. Your eyes will adjust and you will be able to see just fine. The inside of the house, while overgrown with swamp plants and faintly winking with magic, will look surprisingly ordinary. Do not comment on it, unless it is to issue the man a compliment. _

_ You will be lead into the tiny yet sprawling living room and offered a seat. The man will disappear into what you assume to be the kitchen and put on a kettle of water. A few short minutes later - you do not hear a whistle from the kettle, nor the rolling bubble of boiling water - the man will return with two cups of tea. He will not offer you sugar or milk, but the tea will not need it. Sip it and listen as he breathes in deeply, exhales in a slow and steady stream, then smiles a smile that is far too gentle for his face. He will gaze warmly into his tea as he tells you the story: _

“Many years ago, more than you would believe, I was a young and foolish man. I did not want to be a shepherd like my mother or a cobbler like my father, and so I decided to leave my childhood home in favor of travelling. If I was to resign myself to a dull and quiet life in the country, I at least wanted to see some of the world that I was to leave behind. When I set off it was with a small amount of food and a smaller amount of money. If I was to get by, I would have to find work to do along the way. While I did not excel at any particular trade, I was practiced in enough of them to be of some use to whoever I would meet. My parents wished me luck and safe travels and I wandered off in no direction in particular.

As it turned out, my parents had prepared me better than I had realized at the time of my departure. When I came across inns, I was able to do work in the kitchen or the stable in exchange for a meal and a room to sleep in. When there was no inn to be found, I was able to find some place dry and relatively warm and to start a fire to cook on and to sleep by. Days passed like this. Then weeks. After what had felt to be about a month, I realized I had very little idea of where I was and very little care about that fact. My parents could keep worrying if they so chose, as I was not ready to bring my travels to an end just yet.

It was during my second month of travel that I first encountered the bog. The little town in which I had stayed the night before had been bursting with people who wished for little more than to issue me warnings about the bog. It was a nasty place, they said, full of monsters and witches that hunted anyone foolish enough to enter their domain. As a young and somewhat arrogant man - and perhaps a little too curious for my own good - I took their warnings as something between a challenge and a mystery. All the townspeople had managed to do was ignite a spark of burning interest in the bog and the secrets and terrors that reigned within it. It was with their chorus of warnings and my trusty little hunting knife that I entered the swamp the next day.

The first thing that assaulted me was the smell. It smelled very much like this one, as that bog was not so different from the one in which we currently reside. Patches of soft, muddy earth and puddles of murky, stagnant water smelled equally of rot and damp and mold. Eventually I grew so aggravated by the smell that I tied a handkerchief around my nose and mouth. It didn’t help much, but I grew accustomed to the smell somewhere along the way. I cannot be sure of how long I travelled within that swamp, as the light that filtered through the low canopy of drooping trees ensured a perpetual twilight not unlike that of this home.”

_ He will laugh, and you should smile in return but say nothing. _

“And so I wandered through the swamp, unsure of what I was searching for. Monsters, perhaps? Mysteries? A story to tell my parents when I returned to the grassy hills of my homeland? Whatever it was that I wanted to find, I certainly found  _ something.  _ The first curiosity that crossed my path was a wisp. No, not one wisp. I came across many wisps in that bog. They floated along like hazy blue flames. At first there was one, leading me along precarious paths over the unreliable earth. After my first stumble launched me precariously close to a deep and cloudy little pond, I made a point of finding a branch, not unlike a primitive spear, to test the patches of earth before I wandered blindly into them. My crude little tool actually worked quite well and almost certainly saved me from a decidedly unpleasant end. Other wisps, seemingly interested, joined the first until they formed a little cloud like that of swarming lightning bugs. Though they had no faces on which to express nor voices with which to say so, it seemed to me somehow that the wisps were rather...impressed with my cleverness. After their attempts to cause me to fall and drown were thwarted, they began to lead me along slightly safer paths. This surprised me, but I did not question it. I was at their mercy. At that point I was lost in the bog with no idea which way lead to where. If I wanted to leave the bog again, it would be at the whim of the wisps.

I followed the wisps in this way for what seemed like hours. At some point, I began to talk to them, to tell them about my journey and ask them questions which they could not answer. One such question was where they were leading me. The wisps merely fluttered in response, as they had to each of my previous questions. I had no choice but to follow, so I suppose it didn’t really matter where we were heading.

Though we didn’t pass any other creatures that were so prominently displayed as the wisps, we did pass what felt to me like countless sets of eyes belonging to various residents of the bog, though I cannot tell you what they might have been. Or rather, I could not then. Now, as you might imagine, I have grown almost intimately familiar with the children of the swamp. It’s what happens when you become a child of the swamp yourself. Likely I passed creatures such as boggarts, kelpies, neker, as well as whatever swamp witch might have been residing there at the time. We are rather solitary creatures, swamp witches, so you aren’t likely to find more than one in any given swamp.”

_ He will smile. Remain silent. Do not be afraid. _

“Anyway, it was just as my legs were beginning to ache from the hours of walking over uneven earth without rest that I began to hear music. The moment I recognized it as music was the same moment that the wisps fled in all directions, apparently frightened off by whatever creature was now exerting its control. This unsettled me, for I had begun to grow somewhat fond of the wisps. They were really not so bad after the initial drowning attempts. I almost looked upon them as silent friends at that point. But they were gone, replaced only by the sound of an instrument I could not place. It had the clarity of a church bell and the echoing sweetness of a harp. I would have thought it to be some such instrument if the tune had not morphed slowly into words. It went like this:”

_ Then he will begin singing a song, and you must listen without moving, for if you move then you will be lost forever. Do not succumb to the music. Do not follow the creatures of the swamp deeper. You will drown. Or you will join them. _

“‘ _ I told my love to run with me, _

_ To meet me under full moon’s glow. _

_ I told him we could both be free _

_ If through the dreary bog we go. _

_ My love, he met me ‘pon the hill. _

_ His eyes shone like the moon so bright. _

_ He took my hand and stoned his will _

_ And walked with me into the night. _

_ The dangers of the bog we faced, _

_ The waters deep and earth untrue. _

_ Behind us knife-toothed creatures chased. _

_ Before us waited life anew. _

_ Then my love’s hand slipped from mine _

_ As traitor roots tore at his feet. _

_ The water cushioned his decline _

_ And down he sank to mud and peat. _

_ As water swallowed him alive, _

_ The bog taking trespasser's toll, _

_ For my love such tears I cried _

_ While my heart grew dark and cold. _

_ Then to the bog did I belong, _

_ For it had taken all from me. _

_ My love, my happiness, was gone _

_ And never again could I be free. _

_ So come away with me, my love, _

_ And join me in eternal dusk. _

_ No need for light and life above _

_ Forever deep in death’s sweet musk.’ _

The voice was so sweet that I felt tears upon my cheeks before I had even realized they were falling. From the moment I heard it, I had no choice but to follow it. So I did. I followed the song as it repeated and as it changed. No matter the tune, the lyrics always told the story of love and death, and it was intoxicating. Without the wisps it took quite a while of following the voice, around in circles, to dead-ends and back out again, before I caught sight of the creature. I knew the moment I spied him that I would never again meet a creature so sweet and so lovely. I was his from that moment.

‘Come closer,’ he said, and I did. I had no choice but to obey. As I approached I saw more and more of him as he rose from the murky water to meet me. His hair was the honey-gold of wheat, streaked with mud and grime from the marsh. It curled like a halo about his head but was wet against the nape of his neck where it had so recently been submerged in the water. At his waist, the skin began to take on a more scaled texture, and I realized that, instead of legs, he possessed a deep green tail like that of a fish. As he rose, though, the scales morphed into skin and the tail split into legs and he took the form of a man, though he was more angelic than any man I had ever seen. I knew what this creature was. He was one of the most dangerous monsters of the bog that the townspeople had warned me of. Yet, even with their warnings, I could feel an intense love for the monster building in my chest. He would surely drown me. And I would let him.

I stood before him then, clothed as he was only in the mud of the swamp, and waited for him to direct me.

‘This is the part when you drag me to the depths of the water and drown me, isn’t it?’ I asked him.

He seemed almost taken aback by the question. It appeared that he was more accustomed to people wandering into his territory without knowing the danger they were getting themselves into. But then he smiled and nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose it is. Are you going to beg for your life?’

I thought for only a moment before answering firmly, ‘No,’ and returned his smile.

Once again, he seemed at a loss. This was not how things usually went for him. I took a sort of perverse pride in being such unusual prey for him, and once again waited for him to take me.

Then he did take me, his cool and slick hand taking my own and pulling me along with him into the water from which he had emerged. I would have expected him to be wearing a smile at such a moment, for I was quite an easy catch. But there was no smile on his cherubic face. There was only what seemed to me to be a terrible contortion of his face into a thoughtful frown. Nothing about the situation seemed to be going quite right. Still I followed him into the water, even as it wrapped its cool fingers around my feet, my legs, my hips. Deeper and deeper we went, my hand kept firmly in his. The cold water stung my chest, then my shoulders, and finally my head. Instinctively, I took a deep breath before my mouth and nose went under, though I knew my air supply would not last long.

In the murky darkness of the water, I opened my eyes. I could just barely make out the hazy outline of the monster before me. For several long moments, nothing happened. Then finally the shape came closer, and I felt cool lips press to mine. That was it, I thought, soon I would be dead and this monster would feast on me. And I would have done it all willingly. But the air was not stripped from my lungs. Rather, I felt the pressure on my lungs relax as the need for breath slowly vanished. Instead of cold, I began to feel the water around me as a pleasantly cool temperature. It took me several moments to realize that I was breathing the water as if it was air. Yet even through this transformation, I did not feel as though my body was changing very radically at all. Then the lips - cool at first, but now pleasantly warm - pulled away from mine. My vision cleared under the water, and I could suddenly see my lovely monster with almost perfect clarity. He was smiling at me. My heart ached for that smile.

Then he returned us to the surface of the water, and I breathed the air no differently than I had the water just moments ago.

‘What have you done to me?’ I asked him, though without any malice in my voice. If anything, I would say there was wonder in it.

‘I have given you some of my magic,’ he answered. ‘I do not require any price for it except that you will be happy, but if you would like to…’

I stared at him as his voice trailed off, and an impossibly adorable shade of pink illuminated his face.

‘If you would like to, you could stay here with me.’

At that, I decided to answer by taking it upon myself to lean forward and take his lips once again with mine.’

_ He will be blushing now. You can see in him what the monster did so many years ago. _

“And so I made of him one final request: to return to my family and tell them that I was going to make a new life for myself somewhere far away. He agreed, and he told me that when I returned there would be a home waiting for me, if I should choose to live within its walls. I asked if he would live there with me, and he replied that he would. So I went back to my parents and told them I had met someone with whom I wished to spend the rest of my days, and they were sad to see me go but also happy to see the joy with which I told them about my love. And so I returned to that bog and we made ourselves a home where we have been living ever since. I never did pick up shepherding or cobbling, for I fill the long hours of my days with swamp witchery.”

_ Then he will smile one final time, and you must thank him for his story. He will lead you back to the door and tell you that you are welcome to visit any time, but not to come around too often. He and his love enjoy each others’ company far more than they enjoy that of strangers. _

“But next time you come around, perhaps Martin will be here with me and we will all have tea together.”

_ And then you must thank him once more and be on your way. Remembering the story will fill you with a warmth and happiness that you cannot quite understand, but you appreciate the feeling deeply. And if you turn back to the little shack, you might find Jonathan the Swamp Witch standing on the little front porch of the little house with someone who had not been there moments ago - someone with dirty gold hair that falls in curls almost to his shoulders - and they are kissing like they’re the only two people in the whole world. And to them, they are. _

_ This, too, fills you with a deep and inexplicable happiness. _


End file.
